Town restores millrace
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. – In 1852, city founder Elias Briggs dug by hand a channel connecting existing sloughs that created a 3.5-mile millrace to power saw and flour mills.
It was strenuous work, but Briggs finished the job in far less time than it took several local public agencies to restore and improve most of his handiwork.
After more than a quarter-century of planning and construction, officials gathered Monday to celebrate the completion of the $9.7 million restoration project. The project aims to enhance habitat for fish and wildlife, improve water supply for domestic and industrial use, and provide outdoor recreation next to a revitalizing downtown.
“I have often spoken of Springfield’s proud history and bright future,” Mayor Christine Lundberg told about 50 people who gathered for the ceremony on a spot overlooking the former mill pond. “Today, the millrace symbolizes both.”
The city of Springfield, Springfield Utility Board, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Willamalane Park and Recreation District worked together on the project.
Officials spent many years searching for money for the project. Voters approved a bond measure in 1995 that provided $1 million for the millrace project. The corps provided $5 million in funding with the city providing the remainder, including the bond money.
The millrace diverts from the Middle Fork Willamette River at Clearwater Park and flows northwest before rejoining the river near Island Park.
Workers moved the millrace’s inlet – constructing a new boat launch at Clearwater Park in the process – and removed the century-old dam to drain the 30-acre mill pond and transform it into a wetlands. They dug a new channel that connects to three ponds surrounded by native vegetation.
The millrace flows past the Springfield Plywood and Veneer mill that was recently destroyed in a spectacular fire.
A pile of blackened logs on the mill property served as a distant backdrop for the ceremony. The blaze singed vegetation on the banks of the millrace next to the mill, but the damage wasn’t significant, said Jesse Jones, the city’s project manager.
“We got really lucky,” he said.
Officials temporarily closed the Willamette River around its confluence with the millrace due to the presence of an abnormal number of dead fish. State officials suspect that the cause of the fish kill was ash from the blaze or lye that escaped from a damaged tank, or possibly higher water temperatures caused by the fire.
Len Goodwin, the city’s director of development services and public works who has worked on the project for 20 years, said although the circumstances were sad, the fish kill proved fish had returned to the millrace.
“That was our objective: to get fish in,” he said.